Rep. Maloney Praises Obama: ‘FDR Is Back’

(CNSNews.com) – After watching President Barack Obama deliver the State of the Union address on Tuesday, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) compared him favorably to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the "New Deal," big-government president who died in 1945, during his fourth term in office.

“FDR is back,” Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) told CNSNews.com after President Obama's State of the Union Address. (AP Photo).

FDR is back,” Maloney told CNSNews.com. Speaking about Obama, Maloney said, “He had specific programs, a vision. He spoke to the needs of the city I represent, New York -- increased gun safety, immigration reform -- jobs, jobs, jobs.”

“It was a great speech,” Maloney said.

The president drew repeated applause when he urged Congress to vote on various gun control proposals:

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"Senators of both parties are working together on tough new laws to prevent anyone from buying guns for resale to criminals," Obama said. "Police chiefs are asking our help to get weapons of war and massive ammunition magazines off our streets, because these police chiefs, they're tired of seeing their guys and gals being outgunned. Each of these proposals deserves a vote in Congress," Obama said.

"If you want to vote no, that's your choice. But these proposals deserve a vote, because in the two months since Newtown, more than a thousand birthdays, graduations, anniversaries have been stolen from our lives by a bullet from a gun."

Singling out people in the audience who have been affected by violence, President Obama said -- to repeated applause --"Gabby Giffords deserves a vote...The families of Newtown deserve a vote...The families of Aurora deserve a vote...The families of Oak Creek, and Tucson, and Blacksburg, and the countless other communities ripped open by gun violence, they deserve a simple vote."

Obama conceded that gun control legislation "will not prevent every senseless act of violence in this country. In fact, no laws, no initiatives, no administrative acts will perfectly solve all of the challenges I've outlined tonight. But we were never sent here to be perfect."

Rep. Maloney has sponsored a bill that would make firearms trafficking a federal crime and impose stronger penalties for “straw purchasers” who buy guns for convicted felons and others who are prohibited from buying guns on their own.